The interview focuses on Dr. Kustom's work on designing and building the Advanced Photon Sourceat Argonne National Laboratory, a materials science accelerator that was the most expensive Department of Energy accelerator of the 1990s. His chief responsibility was the radio frequency (RF) system.

Robert L. Kustom holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has designed and built several accelerators at Argonne National Laboratory, including the Zero Gradient Synchrotron, the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source, and the Advanced Photon Source. He also helped build the Spallation Neutron Source at Oakridge National Laboratory.